The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, and the time to judge the dead and to reward Your servants the prophets, and the saints and those who fear Your name, both the small and the great, and to destroy those who are destroying the earth. Rev. 11:18.
Those who face grief or hardship anywhere in the world can appreciate the message of the seventh trumpet. The world belongs to God, and He will take full charge of it at the appropriate time (Rev. 11:15). When He does, He will right all the wrongs of history, shattering all opposition to His rule (verse 18). Today's text reminds us that when the day of judgment comes God will reward both small and great (verse 18), just as He will punish both great and small (Rev. 6:15).
The hardships of he past have molded the Black church tradition of North America. Those who endured oppression in everyday life looked forward to church, where janitors could be deacons and street sweepers could be preachers. The Black church tradition follows the New Testament pattern in which slaves often rose to the office of bishop. There are no limits when God is on your side.
Rosa Parks was tired after a hard day as a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama. She had to run a youth meeting later that night. Still she didn't jump right on the first bus that came by that Thursday evening. The bus stop was crowded, so she headed to a drugstore to shop for an electric heating pad, thinking that she could get a seat on the way home if she waited a bit.
When she finally deposited her 10-cent fare on the Cleveland Avenue bus, she found a seat in the front row of the "colored" section in the back. But after a few stops the driver ordered her to get up so a White passenger could sit down. When Parks refused, the driver summoned the police to take her to jail. Two hours after the arrest she was released on $100 bail. By midnight Black leaders had formulated a plan for a citywide bus boycott. A young Baptist minister named Martin Luther King Jr. became its leader.
The boycott lasted 381 days, until the Supreme Court ruled that segregation on buses was illegal. The success of the boycott ignited the modern civil rights movement. "When I declined to give up my seat, it was not that day or bus in particular," Parks said later. "I just wanted to be free, like everybody else."
"Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:10, NIV). We don't need to wait until the kingdom comes to treat other people the way heaven does.
Lord, open my eyes to the injustice You see in my world and my community. Help me to be an agent of change today.
Those who face grief or hardship anywhere in the world can appreciate the message of the seventh trumpet. The world belongs to God, and He will take full charge of it at the appropriate time (Rev. 11:15). When He does, He will right all the wrongs of history, shattering all opposition to His rule (verse 18). Today's text reminds us that when the day of judgment comes God will reward both small and great (verse 18), just as He will punish both great and small (Rev. 6:15).
The hardships of he past have molded the Black church tradition of North America. Those who endured oppression in everyday life looked forward to church, where janitors could be deacons and street sweepers could be preachers. The Black church tradition follows the New Testament pattern in which slaves often rose to the office of bishop. There are no limits when God is on your side.
Rosa Parks was tired after a hard day as a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama. She had to run a youth meeting later that night. Still she didn't jump right on the first bus that came by that Thursday evening. The bus stop was crowded, so she headed to a drugstore to shop for an electric heating pad, thinking that she could get a seat on the way home if she waited a bit.
When she finally deposited her 10-cent fare on the Cleveland Avenue bus, she found a seat in the front row of the "colored" section in the back. But after a few stops the driver ordered her to get up so a White passenger could sit down. When Parks refused, the driver summoned the police to take her to jail. Two hours after the arrest she was released on $100 bail. By midnight Black leaders had formulated a plan for a citywide bus boycott. A young Baptist minister named Martin Luther King Jr. became its leader.
The boycott lasted 381 days, until the Supreme Court ruled that segregation on buses was illegal. The success of the boycott ignited the modern civil rights movement. "When I declined to give up my seat, it was not that day or bus in particular," Parks said later. "I just wanted to be free, like everybody else."
"Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:10, NIV). We don't need to wait until the kingdom comes to treat other people the way heaven does.
Lord, open my eyes to the injustice You see in my world and my community. Help me to be an agent of change today.
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